


ugly things

by rabidfrogman



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst, Car Sex, Dissociation, Dubious Consent, Eventual Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Jerome is a freak, M/M, Office Sex, Possessive Behavior, Verbal Humiliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 12:30:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20528072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabidfrogman/pseuds/rabidfrogman
Summary: Oswald has always loved fast and he has always loved hard.Because without the rush, the crash, the hot and hateful friction between bodies and the momentum of every bruise that forms too fast and takes too long to fade, he will simply fall apart.





	ugly things

Jim Gordon fucks him like a sex doll in the back of his car. Neither of them bother to take off their clothes; Jim, because he loathes the feeling of Oswald’s fingers against his skin, and Oswald because he knows he will be thrown out the car as soon as they finish. The entire car creaks and groans in protest as their bodies rock against each other, syncopated and uneven, like their bodies repel each other by natural forces (and it’s true, Jim never waits around or offers a lift when they’re done. He just swerves out of the alley in a rush, leaving Oswald to hobble through the thick clouds of smoke coughed out by the exhaust pipes).

They don’t want to touch each other, but they’ve done this dance enough times to know how to work around it. Jim grabs fistfuls of Oswald’s dark hair, ruffling the locks out of the deliberate spikes that Oswald had set them in, and pushes his face away, _ away, _ so that his cheek is flushed against the cracking leather seat and neither of them have to look at each other. The gesture is rough and it is a warning — _ don’t moan like you want this — _but Oswald knows how to retaliate. He grabs Jim’s tie with one hand and the other roams for something, anything else in the car interior that he can grab onto while Jim fucks his mind to guilty ecstacy. His fingers find the seatbelt and latches themselves around it, and Oswald is groaning and bucking and writhing as he feels the heat inside him mounting, and Jim’s grunts are becoming less suppressed, less controlled. Each thrust comes faster and harder, and the slap of skin against skin and the way their trousers chafe together and get caught on each other’s belt buckles, the way Jim Gordon pins him down like he’s a wild thing, the way they tussle like wounded, desperate roosters in a cockfight —

(And the way the backseat is full of bared teeth and deep growls and Oswald is becoming less certain as to which one is the animal between the two of them, and when Jim’s thigh settles on his bad leg he has to bite back a cry —)

They’re facing each other, but only because the limited space doesn’t allow for any other position. When Jim comes inside of him, Oswald’s own moan drowns out the tiny, shaky sigh that escapes Jim’s lips. The umbrella boy has always been willing to provide this censorship. Jim fucks him like a taboo, like a bad habit that is in equal measures despised and romanticised, and Oswald knows the shame of it is half the pleasure. He wonders, as his toes curl inside his pointed dress shoes and he feels himself reaching his end as well, if Jim chose him strategically. Because Barbara is all sharp and sleek and beautiful, and Oswald is made up of odd angles and his sharpness is grating, not attractive, is full of bones that didn’t heal properly and features that are bird-like in aggression but not elegance. Jim needed the person least like Barbara so he didn’t have to think about her and torture himself with longing and regret, and that happened to be Oswald.

The two dress themselves quickly (after Jim wrestles his tie out of Oswald’s cold, pale fingers, and the latter has caught his breath and pulled his pants up). Then, the door clicks open and Oswald finds himself standing alone in the cold alleyway, watching Jim’s rear lights disappear into the fog and the night.

As he limps out of the alleyway, he perks his head up to the sound of high-pitched, feminine laughs out on the street. A trio of girls, dressed in little beyond dark laces despite the chilling weather, are meandering along the pavement, laughing between themselves but mostly at the man in between them, who is wearing an expensive silver suit. The women’s lips are blood-red with rouge, and their skin is soft and beautiful under the glow of flickering store signs. The group disappears around the corner of the street. It is quiet again.

Oswald huffs to himself, and watches his breath dissipate in the cold in wisps. He doesn’t like to consider himself as easy, but he does wonder how he and Jim had slipped into this routine. Perhaps it was because they both needed the touch, the physicality, but neither wanted it to be dealt by someone they adored (because that would be too complex, too many strings and emotions attached, too_ much). _Because the disagreeability between them makes it easy for their bodies to displace each other as soon as it was done.

Perhaps it was because he was lonely, as much as it was because Jim needed someone that he wasn’t afraid of breaking, because they fuck out of frustration and there’s never any tenderness to it.

Oswald closes his eyes, laughs self-deprecatingly, and walks forward again. No, Jim needs _ him, _ for the sake of it being _ him _and nobody else. Because he’s a dirty secret, an Achilles’ heel, and he knows that deep down, Jim craves the darkness and ugliness and shame inside himself. And Oswald is the only one understands it, needs it, becomes it as much as him.

***

Victor Zsasz fucks him like a trophy, as if he’s a seasoned hunter and Oswald is the latest pair of antlers being mounted above his fireplace. It works like a service, a transaction; Victor gets off to banging his boss in their office, and Oswald gets off to being fucked raw against his own desk. Oswald doesn’t remember who instigated it (it might have been himself, on the opening week of his club. He was lonely, and having Zsasz’s company was better than none, although the assassin has always been a man of doing above talking).

Oswald had no illusions about the nature of this affair. They were merely employer and employee, and this was merely another way for them to use each other to their own ends. He barely winces when Victor moves forward, pinning him harder against the table and forcing his bad leg out at an angle. They usually just pretend they’re with someone else until they’re done (Victor tends to picture Asian girls who are the same height as Oswald, while the other man’s mind always seems to return unwillingly to angular features and high cheekbones and deep-set eyes behind thick-rimmed glasses—)

When he climaxes, Oswald almost folds onto his desk like crumpled origami. His eyes flutter closed and he tries and fails to stop his mind from wandering. It’s been three years since he spent cold, lonely nights in the back of Jim’s car, letting Jim take his frustrations (sexual and work-related) out on him and in him like a ragdoll. He’s no longer Fish Mooney’s umbrella boy, the one who only dared to stab people from behind and shook and cried and begged as soon as a gun barrel was pressed against his forehead. Now, he has proven himself to be the most cunning mayor and ruthless kingpin (_“the terror of Gotham”, _Mooney’s voice, thick with scorn and pride, still rings in his head from time to time) in the city’s history. He has monopoly power over every legal and illegal manufacturer in Gotham, and his club, the Iceberg Lounge, has fleshed itself out as the meeting place for the city’s elites and the bourgeoisie.

He used to think that Jim felt at least _ some _ gratitude for the favours that Oswald had done for him over the years. But Jim only ever reciprocated his kind gestures and offers of friendship with threats and deterrence — _ you’re a criminal, Oswald — _ Victor pulls out, wipes himself on Oswald’s suit with deliberate mischief, and stalks out of the room silently — _ come here again and I’ll throw you behind bars — _Oswald grits his jaw and sighs through his teeth.

At first, it was hard to let Jim go —_ but you’re my old friend, Jim Gordon — _ even after the continual rejection — _ you’re a lunatic and you belong in Arkham — _ and even after the begging — _ you’re my _ only _ friend, Jim, please — _ and the rejection again — _ stay away, Oswald. _

Their dance had ended long before Oswald was finally able to snap himself out of the angry beat of it. It was still difficult to stop thinking about Jim Gordon, but someone else’s hands (oh, they were so, _ so _gentle as they changed his bandages and smeared balm over his wounds, and sang his mother’s lullaby to him, and shook him out of his nightmares by his shoulders, firm but tender) helped ease the memories and longing away (or not, because they only coaxed Oswald’s longing in another direction).

Oswald had frozen that tenderness away when he froze Ed Nygma inside a block of ice _ (for revenge, _ his brain says, but his heart is whispering gingerly: _ to preserve it, to savour it, to suspend it forever in time). _ He had let love get in his way once — yes, only _ once, _ because as much as he hates to admit that, _ maybe, _ he had developed feelings of affection for Jim Gordon once upon a time, he is smart enough to recognise that those feelings had been chased away by Jim’s constant ingratitude and challenges long ago. He had loved Ed Nygma, and in return, Ed put a bullet in his stomach and threw him into the river to die.

Idly, almost absently, Oswald’s eyes drift to the door where Victor had left. They are both odd people at best (and Oswald remembers the way Gabriel looked at him, with disgust and anger and voice thick with the insult, _ freak, freak, freak, _right before Oswald ripped his chest open with the garden rake); it makes sense that they can have sex without either feeling too self-conscious about themselves or their match. Victor Zsasz fucks him with as much professionalism as when he takes out his targets, and honestly, Oswald could laugh.

That’s right. This time, he has no illusions. He only needs Zsasz for the exercise, and to stave off the boredom of working in his office. It’s not because he’s lonely, or because he’s hungry for any distraction that might take him off of guilty thoughts of green suits and bowler hats and cunning riddles. No, that would be him admitting defeat, admitting that, _ yes, _Ed was right, he will always let his base emotions rule him. And that would be truly pathetic.

In the silence of the evening, Oswald almost hates how spacious, how _ empty, _the club looks. He briefly toys with the idea of adopting a cat to liven up the place, then immediately chuckles out loud at his own ridiculous idea.

He’s more of a dog person, anyway.

***

Jerome Valeska fucks him like a butcher slaughters a sheep. He’s laughing and laughing and laughing and Oswald is crying and crying and crying; it’s dry and grating like crackles of lightning, and every other second Oswald feels his vision swimming from the pain of it. He’s been in Arkham for two months, and the first one had been hell on Earth. Jerome had somehow gotten hold of the device that Hugo Strange used to use on him to administer his _ ‘therapy’ _sessions.

And every day he was forced to relive the worst moments of his life, over and over. The device forced him to watch his mother die in his arms, and then watch the life froth out of his father’s open mouth, and then it made him stare at his mother’s corpse again, and his father’s cold and bloated face, and all the while the static shocks made his entire body spasm and writhe against restraints that dug into his skin, and the electricity peeled back his scalp and dug into his skull and stirred the insides of his brain around with playful fingers.

(When he wasn’t having his brains cooked, Jerome made sure that Oswald could not get anywhere inside the building without receiving a healthy beating from his cronies. Many times, they deliberately stepped on Oswald’s bad ankle as they were walking away.)

The bruises and aches piled up, and Oswald was sleeping less and less, spending more time at night trying to stop himself from shaking while fighting off the urge to close his eyes, because every time he did he would see the shadows of his parents’ bodies imprinted behind his eyelids. He was used to aching but he was getting so, _ so tired, _ and when Jerome bribed the guards to confiscate his pillow and mattress and the pencil that Oswald had managed to keep stashed away under his bed, it had all been too much, so when Jerome offered reprieve from all the hurt in exchange for small favours, Oswald was already in his lap moaning _ yes, yes, yes, anything. Anything to take away the hurting. _

Every single time, Jerome would cackle through it from start to finish. He litters each night with equal parts of doting names and insults, _ Oswald, my little bird, _ or _ Oswald, my pretty whore, _ and he fucks Oswald to his limit and then some more. At first, Oswald vaguely registers that Jerome isn’t doing this for pleasure — he’s far too influential within Arkham to have to resort to someone as unattractive as the Penguin. He’s doing this because he _ can, _ because if he can make the king of Gotham his slut then he can bring anyone to their knees. Because it’s fun for him to watch Oswald tussle with his own pride, until the nights are _ too _ lonely and his body aches _ too _much and he doesn’t think he can survive another beating under Jerome’s orchestration and scrutiny—

(Dozens of men have tried to kill Oswald Cobblepot and failed, because his resolve was stronger than theirs. What happens, however, when his resolve is dropped into acid and left to corrode? He crumbles in on himself, and into the arms of anyone willing to catch him. Even if they only catch him to drop him again.)

With a sharp, wild laugh, Jerome bites Oswald’s neck, bites down _ hard, _and Oswald screams (out of pleasure or pain, his mind is too foggy for him to tell). The noise is caught in his swollen throat and eventually dies down into a lower, more guttural moan. He’s never had the most imposing build, but since coming to Arkham he has shed most of the weight his body can afford to shed without being reduced to just skin and bones. He weighs nothing and every time Jerome thrusts into him his body lolls like a broken doll. “You are such an ugly sight,” Jerome sneers, and Oswald cannot be quicker to nod in agreement, because everything Jerome says is right (unless he wants another beating, or more therapy, and he trembles at the thought of either—)

With quiet whimpers Oswald tries to adjust himself in the other man’s lap, so that his legs wrap around the other’s waist (oh, but they can’t stop shaking); his arms cling weakly to Jerome’s shoulders, like he’s holding onto railings to keep his body from collapsing. Jerome whispers in his ear, “You’re pathetic, and weak, and grotesque,” relishes the way Oswald shivers at every word, and drags his nails down Oswald’s bared, pale back. It draws blood from his dry and cracking skin, and Oswald chokes back his whines and sobs as he buries his head into Jerome’s shoulder (— anything so he doesn’t have to see himself, because Jerome is right, he’s made of sharp and starved corners and his pointed face can be nothing but ugly; he’s _ hideous _ and his body is all _ wrong _ and his leg _ hurts _ and everything _ hurts _ —)

“But I wouldn’t have you any other way, little bird. You’re _ mine, _ all fragile and fucked up like this,” comes the purr, and Oswald is still trying to stop his head from spinning. _ What? _ He takes a moment to try to reel his mind back to reality (and it’s so _ hard, _ because he’s so blissed-out when his mind is somewhere else, because inhabiting his body _ hurts _ and it’s gotten so easy to clock his mind out of his own body), his expression transitioning from a mix of narcotic pleasure and fatigue to a more stunned look. Jerome watches his expression change and laughs, “I told you I was going to free your mind from its prison, didn’t I? And I did that, didn’t I, ol’ boy? Look at you, you can’t even keep your whore mouth clamped shut.” Oswald is about to launch into a tumble of tired apologies, of _ I’m sorry Jerome, I’ll be better Jerome, _when the other continues, “It’s kind of adorable, isn’t it? You’re just a freak who wants a little love.”

And suddenly Oswald is sobbing, _ yes yes yes, please, I’ll do anything, please, I’m so lonely and everything hurts and I just want to lean on your shoulder for a little while. I’m ugly and wrong and embarrassing but I swear I’ll be good, I’ll be yours, just please don’t leave me alone— _

Jerome clutches Oswald like a used toy and he laughs, because he didn’t expect the king of Gotham to be this easy to break.

(Oswald doesn’t register the cackles at all. His mind had already made its escape again. Now, he’s by the fireplace in his father’s mansion and Ed is holding him in his lap, and Ed wants _ him _ and not Isabella, because this is in _ his _ mind and he gets to decide how the story goes this time. And Ed is kissing him all over, kissing the teeth marks that sink deep into his neck and the claw marks tearing his back open, kissing it all better, until none of the pain lingers. It’s warm, and Ed’s fingers are soft and patient, healing and forgiving, and Oswald is warm and everything is tender and _ doesn’t ache—) _

“You’re _ mine, _ little penguin. I’m the _ only _ one who wants you, all your ugliness, do you understand?” There’s a hand twisted into Oswald’s hair, pulling and pulling until follicles are ripped from his scalp, but Oswald doesn’t feel it. He doesn’t feel any of the pain. He only feels a warm giddiness blooming in his chest, because someone _ wants _ him, even though he’s ugly, even though he’s lonely. “You’re never going to get luckier than me.” _ Yes, _ Oswald agrees, his thoughts blurring and tangling together because it aches too much to try and untangle them, _ yes yes yes yes. _

(Oswald is by the pier, and he’s clutching his stomach, staring down at his abdomen in disbelief, at the blood that squirts out in a fine stream. Ed’s gun is still pointed at him, a thin string of smoke still rising from the tip of the gun barrel, and he’s saying something but his voice is muffled.)

“You belong to me, Oswald.”

_ (I love you, _ Oswald tries to plead, as he has always tried to plead with Ed. _ I love you, please, I need you, please, _but his voice doesn’t come out, and his hands are pale and ugly and twisted and Ed shoots him again, and again, and again and again until he’s more holes than he is body and Oswald Cobblepot simply disappears.)

Jerome, getting bored of the lack of resistance or response, pulls Oswald’s head back to get a glimpse of his face. Then immediately bursts into a renewed laughing fit. He’d passed out with Jerome still inside of him.

***

Edward Nygma treats him like a riddle, and every part of Oswald that isn’t already too exhausted burns with rage. It’s been five months since the Riddler broke him out of Arkham, five months since Jerome died on live television, leaving the city in ruins in his wake.

In the public eye, the Penguin wasted no time in clawing his way back to the city’s throne, because cops and supervillains be damned, the former mayor and kingpin of Gotham will not be done away so easily. Although Ed could never stay for long (business in the Narrows, or something of the sort), he and Oswald had managed to resume some sort of tense partnership that might even pass off as the beginning of reconciliation.

As long as there was another pair of eyes in the room, the Riddler did not dare to get too familiar with the Penguin. When they were left alone, however, Ed Nygma would try to ask Oswald _ what’s wrong, what happened to you in Arkham, _ because of course Ed would notice that something is off about his demeanor and _ of course _Ed would try to solve him.

And Oswald hates him for it.

One time, as Ed notices the way Oswald’s hands are shaking when he tries to pour himself a glass of water and offers to help, Oswald finally snaps and lashes out. _ “Why _are you treating me like this?” he snarls, whipping around to face Ed with all his teeth bared, like an enraged (cornered) animal.

“Oswald, I don’t understand— I was just offering you some assistance with pouring—”

“Like I _ need _ your help,” he spits out, enunciating each word with venom, as if the anger might mask his hypocrisy as he continues, “I don’t _ need _ you, Edward Nygma. Stop trying to treat me like I’m fragile. _ Let me pour your water, let me cook you something, let me take off your jacket. _What the fuck do you want from me?”

Ed is confounded (in itself a riddle, because the Riddler is never stumped for words. But Oswald can’t be saying this to trick him; the man has never had the patience for riddles.) He opens his mouth, but when unable to locate the right words to say, simply shuts it stupidly again.

When he sees that Ed isn’t going to reply, Oswald clenches his jaw and snarls bitterly, “Ever since Arkham, you’ve been different towards me. You used to hate me, didn’t you? You wanted to kill me so badly. You destroyed my empire and dumped me in the river. What happened to _ that? _ Lost your bite when Dr. Thompkins convinced you to start _ helping _ the people of the Narrows? Is that what I am to you? Just another charity cause, some delicate, fucked up project for you to tinker on and _ fix?” _He surprises himself with this sudden tirade, as much as he is catching Ed off-guard. He doesn’t care.

“I don’t… I don’t understand. Oswald, what are you talking—”

“Why are you so fucking _ gentle _with me!?” Oswald screams, balling his hands into pale-knuckled fists and swinging them down frustratedly. Suddenly, he becomes acutely aware of the hot tears surging to the corners of his eyes. Suddenly, he feels very small. When he continues to speak, his voice has lost all its hateful bravado and now it’s just meek, and tired, and impossibly small. “I… I can’t. If this is another trick, I can’t. Please… you’ve already tricked me into confessing everything I felt for you. I can’t… please, Ed, please. No more.”

Finally, Ed finds his voice. And it’s so soft and full of worry (and Oswald _ hates _it, despises it, needs to get away from it) as he takes a step towards his friend and watches him take three steps back. “Oswald, I hold no grudge against you. Not anymore. You freed me from my prison. I want to free you from yours. I want you to be… okay. I care—”

“Please don’t say it, please.” Oswald’s voice is on the verge of breaking, and he can only manage a whisper so that the trembling in his voice doesn’t choke up his words. He feels awful, and there’s a growing ache between his eyes as he fights back tears but it’s not working, it _ never works, _ and soon tears start rolling down his face. He glares at the ground, trying to ignore Ed’s gaze trained on him (because it’s too _ gentle, _ too _ concerned, _ and it’s all wrong and it makes Oswald’s insides knot up, and he wants to be somewhere else, secure in someone’s arms, teeth and nails under his skin to show that he belongs to _ someone, _ because at least then it means that someone _ wants _ him, _ needs _him—)

Normally, Ed Nygma would have backed down. He’s never been good at understanding personal space, but he’s improved and he’s become more aware of when people need distance. Which is why he’s gotten better at realising that, right now, Oswald does not need distance. He needs the opposite. After a split second’s hesitance, Ed closes the space between the two of them (before Oswald can back away further) and gathers him into a hug.

Oswald crumbles in his touch almost immediately.

(Because Oswald has always loved fast and he has always loved hard. Because he always needs a blow to his bad leg to remind him that he doesn’t amount to much, else his own hubris gets the better of him. Because without the rush, the crash, the hot and hateful friction between bodies and the momentum of every bruise that forms too fast and takes too long to fade, he will simply fall apart. And he has desperately wanted to let go for so long, to stop holding himself together at the seams, but no one has ever given him the chance to until Edward Nygma, with all his riddles and tenderness and aching complexities that Oswald just doesn’t want to deal with, not anymore. He’s tried love before and it didn’t work out, and now he just want bruises and backseats and hard surfaces, cold alleyways and empty rooms and dark cells with no mattresses. Those things are simple. Oswald aches so often, so _ much, _he doesn’t want complex things anymore.)

Ed Nygma holds him like a _ person, _ not a _ thing, _ and Oswald has to close his eyes because the whole world is spinning and his head hurts from crying and he doesn’t know when it started but the sobs that bubble from his throat aren’t stopping and he’s too tired to stop them. It hurts because he’s a freak and he’s ugly, and only ugly people want ugly things, but Ed is _ beautiful _and Oswald is sick to death of being presented with riddles that he can’t solve.

Eventually he grows dizzy, and his face is numb and tingling from how extensively he sobs and sobs into Ed’s shoulder, and through it all Ed barely utters a single word besides the occasional _ there there _to accompany the reassuring strokes through his hair and on his back. After another while, Oswald calms down a little more, and though there are still tears dripping down his cheeks his sobs have been reduced to quiet whimpers and sniffles.

Then, Ed finally speaks. “Oswald, remember that night when you saved me from Butch, and I told you I’d do anything for you?”

_ (No more tricks, please. Please.) _Oswald doesn’t find the voice to respond, but nods vaguely into Ed’s shoulder anyway.

“I meant it. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, and you’re someone that I look up to. I was… hurt, angry, after what you did to Isabella, but we’ve already settled that score. I got my revenge. I… know we can’t go back to the way things were. But I miss you.”

Oswald’s tears fall silently; the whole room is silent besides his occasional whimper. He’s deathly afraid of moving, as if worried that the smallest mistake might send this whole picture crumbling to dust, and he’d open his eyes and be in Arkham, tangled with Jerome and all his bloody, hungry teeth. He prays to God that staying very still will help him hold onto the dream for a moment longer, a second longer.

But Ed is so warm, and the way he holds Oswald is so careful and gentle and it’s all just so _ pleasant, _and Oswald just wants to hold Ed back, even if he knows this dream will go away, and he’ll wake up alone in his cell in Arkham, every drop of blood beaten out of his body.

He brings his arms up tentatively, so painfully _ delicately, _ until they’re wrapped around Ed’s torso. He holds his breath and closes his eyes, drinking in Ed’s scent (it’s something vaguely like fresh laundry, and it’s clean and pleasant and so distinctly _ Ed). _ Ed doesn’t disappear when he opens his eyes. He almost starts sobbing again, if only out of relief. “You’re still here…” Oswald breathes out despite himself, his voice shy and wondrous. “You’re _ real…” _

“I’m here, Oswald. I’m here. I’m here. I won’t leave you again, I’m sorry. I won’t let anyone hurt you again, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. I’m here, I need you, I love you.”

(Oswald is drifting away again, into bliss and calm and lightness. It’s okay if this is a dream, he thinks to himself, because Ed loves him back. After years of wanting and needing and _ aching, _ Ed loves him back and that’s enough. He doesn’t need to ask for anything else. Oswald is light-headed, he’s floating away, and he’s whispering, praying, _ thank you, thank you, thank you _ as Edward touches his cheek so tenderly, cupping it in his hand, and then he places his lips on Oswald’s and his heart could burst and his mind is blank except for _ I love you too, I love you too, I love you too…) _

***

Ed Nygma makes love to him like he’s a masterpiece. Ed holds him and cups him like Klimt’s _ Der Kuss, _all swooning sighs and buckling knees (Oswald’s bad leg did give way under him as they were moving towards the bed, but Ed had caught him and set him down ever so gently on the covers) and the gold-threaded night robes that the two of them have shared more than once.

It’s sweet, and slow, and the tenderness of it all has Oswald gasping and crying as if he’s never been touched in his life before. To an extent, maybe it’s true; every person he’s been with in the past has only ever regarded him as a body to use, and after every use he would be discarded and stowed away until next summoned. But Ed… never once does Ed try to hide Oswald away.

When Oswald undresses in front of Ed for the first time, the motions are mechanical, almost unfeelingly efficient. That has always been the norm. Jim never cared for seeing him naked. With Zsasz, even more so. Jerome had always ordered him to strip down as quickly and without fuss as possible, and sometimes when Oswald’s fingers were shaking too much Jerome would just rip his uniform off of him.

So Oswald undresses quickly, and when he hears Ed gasp at the sight of his naked body he backs away immediately and he’s thinking _ no, no, no, I messed up, I’m sorry, I know I’m ugly and dirty and my angles are all wrong and juts out weird and I should never have tried to push things this far because only ugly people want ugly things and you’re beautiful and I’m sorry and please forgive me— _

_ “Oswald, _it’s okay, it’s okay,” Ed coos, keeping his voice mellow to soothe the sudden trembling that overtakes Oswald’s legs. He shifts closers, slowly bringing his hands to Oswald’s skin, using feather-light touches to trace the moon-shaped scars on his shoulders, the long, faded scratches running across his chest and down his stomach, wrapping around his ribs and waist and reaching across his back. His hands brush Oswald’s hips, which have been bruised too many times by rough hands, which are speckled with blood spots where the discolouration might never fade. Ed’s own breath hitches involuntarily as he observes the ruins of Oswald’s body, and already the Riddler is scheming every horrific way he’s going to deal with the people who hurt Oswald, but he reels his mind back, because there will be time for retribution, but now is the time for Oswald, for showing him the softness that the universe is indebted to him for. His hands slip around Oswald’s waist, noting the way the shorter man’s hips tense up at the touch, and looks into his eyes (a shade of startled blue, like a bird about to spring into flight). “Only if you want this, Oswald—”

He is cut off by a hushed, timid, but certain voice. “I need this, Edward. I need you.” He smiles, and slowly plants the lightest kisses on Oswald’s flushed cheeks, one on each side.

Ed Nygma makes love to Oswald like he has every intent to make the lovers in Klimt’s _ Der Kuss _swoon to death with jealousy.

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this on a whim from the window of night between 2am and 7am. this is my first time writing fanfiction, let alone posting something on ao3, so please go easy on me :'-)


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